Africans To The Americas As Slaves example essay topic

African Americans have been a part of the Americas ever since the late 1400's. They came here as explorers, military men, interpreters, navigators, and scouts. African Americans were among the first to ever see Native Americans. The European settlement, wealth, and development depended on their labor. Black people had much experience in agriculture. Such as the growing of rice and cotton which were grown and flourished in all parts of North and West Africa.

This experience helped the economy tremendously. They also had wonderfully developed skills in the arts, like music, architecture, iron-working, and decorative arts. This didn't help the economy, however it did help to mold the society's culture and style. There wasn't really a tragedy that took place, which forced Africans to come here.

There were people; however, who forced them to come here. The first people to bring Africans to the Americas as slaves were the Portuguese traders. They brought the slaves to Caribbean for agricultural work in 1502. It is said that up until the 1860's more then 10 million African Americans were brought to the Americas as slaves. However only 6 percent of this 10 million were traded to the British North Americas, which today is the United States.

The rest were traded to parts of Central and South America. The British, Portuguese, and Dutch controlled most Atlantic trade. Those slaves came from the territories that are now Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, and Togo. Also many came from Angola, Senegal, and Gambia.

The fact that most of the people who became slaves raised cattle or were farmers made them very valuable to the people in the Americas. Today, African American life has changed a great deal. They have many more rights, live their own lifestyles, they basically do as they please just like any other person in the U.S. Occasionally someone who has something against them for whatever reason will cause something or things of that nature, but other races experience some of the same things. African Americans have progressed a great deal in many things, the arts especially. They went from not being able to read or write at all to being famous poets, singers, rappers, and novelists. Some are: Maya Angelou, Eric Jerome Dickey, Omar Tyree, Sista h Soul jah, Sojourner Truth, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, John Edgar Wide man, Redman & Method man, Master P, Mobb Deep, Fabolous, Jermaine Dupri, Usher, Lil' Mo, Janet Jackson, 112, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, and the list gets longer and longer.

African Americans have many different holidays one such as Kwanzaa, which lasts December 26 through January 1st. There are seven guiding principles that are from the Swahili language. They are Umoja (unity), U jima (collective work & responsibility), Kumba (creativity), I mani (faith), Uj amaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), and Kujichagulia (self-determination). They celebrate this by drinking from the unity cup, lighting black, green, and red candles, and exchanging heritage symbols, like African Art. The many agricultural products like yams, ocr a, grits, indigo dyes, peanuts, and rice can be traced all the way back to African and African American influences. "Soul Food" came about from when slaves weren't allowed to eat the better cuts off meat and soul food was the creative use of inexpensive products.

Pig intestines are fried and used to make chitlins, and ham hocks and necks are used to give soup and greens flavor. Other well-known foods are chicken, watermelon, rice, etc. These dishes are easily made.